To be irritated immensely by this person calling their house by its name instead of just saying "my house"

[Turquoisetamborine]

It's my stepmother to be who is revealing herself to be more and more of a narcissist.

She will say "I'm having work done at Gables Boulevard" (not real name of house) or "should we meet at Gables Boulevard before we go out?"

Why not just say I'm having some work done at my house or should we meet at mine before we go out?

I probably am being unreasonable as this is one thing in many that she is doing to irritate and take my dad away from us.

I feel almost like she's talking about her house, which is an average bungalow not a mansion, in the third person.

coralanne that's different though. I own rental properties and I do the same, but it's perfectly acceptable in those circumstances because they could never be referred to as simply 'home' or 'my house.'

Everlong- that's allowed ;)
My 'named' house was called 'The Sawmills' it was ridiculously posh for what amounted to a tiny two bedroom cottage with more damp than walls. I'm sure I could see the disappointment on people's faces when they first came round

When she says 'Shall meet at Gables Boulevard' or similar, I would say 'will that be in the east wing or the west wing?'

But then I am a bit sarky & have also experienced a father's irritating wife.

I have rental properties which I refer to by their street name but I still refer to my house as the house (with the exception of talking my electrician etc).

I do know people that do it but they have multiple homes not simply multiple properties.

Is she actually preventing you from seeing your dad? (You said she is taking your dad away from you.)

See my grandmother lived in an old house. Let's say "the vicarage" (though it wasn't an old vicarage but along the same lines). We'd all say amongst the family "are you going to the vicarage at Christmas?" But it didn't have a number and wasn't a new house renamed or anything.

But I can see how irritating it would be to outsiders.

I'm sorry that this might upset you when you realise it is true but I agree with the poster who said She can only do what your Dad allows, the blame is his.

She can't possibly "take him way from you" without his consent unless he's in a domestically abusive relationship where she's unreasonably controlling him. In which case, you should do something to intervene; if it's not domestic abuse, you have to accept that this is what he wants too - he wants to spend time with his new missus that used to be reserved for you and your siblings. It's his decision, not her fault.

Is she Hyacinth Bucket?

It does sound rather affected Pooka, unless you genuinely come from the kind of family where a country house has been there through several generations, and you all have separate residences in 'town'.

Otherwise why not just say 'Are you going to Granny's for Christmas?'

I used to live in a house that has a name along the lines of the one you describe, and it was large, standalone country home. I would have dreamt referring to it as anything other than 'home' or 'my house'.

My stepbrother used to do this kind of thing. He didn't live at 34b inner-city towerblock, it was Nobbish Gardens. He didn't have a car, he had an Audi.

He was very keen on his labels, bless his little cotton socks. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his exclusive designer shirt was a mega-reduced TK Maxx knockoff

I would re name her house 'Gobblers Knob' or 'Bell End' and start referring to it in the same way. It is sooo pretentious.

Perhaps you should be grateful she doesn't do worse butIhavedoneinthepast shorten it with a 'ers' on the end like a cricket correspondent would, so Bridgend would become 'Bridgers' or a house called Windy Ridge would be 'Winders' etc.

I know a woman that calls her car the audi, as in the audi is having a service tomorrow. They only have the one car!

My exH was from a well-to-do-but-fallen-on-hard-times family and constantly referred to the big, rambling place he grew up by the house name rather than, say, the town. Evenings with other members of the family reminiscing about their halcyon days at 'The Larches' ( do you remember when darling mamma fell off the ha-ha? ) were a bit like eavesdropping on a Downton Abbey script meeting...

My PIL have a house with a name. It's an old cottage & has never had a number so the name bit doesn't irritate me.

What grates is the fact that they say it ALL THE TIME as if it's a person in its own right. For example, instead of saying "Will you be visiting us at Easter?" they would more likely say "So will you be visiting Meadow's End?" [not real name, but not wildly different].

And they are convinced that it's a house like no other & is the spiritual home of all right-thinking people. So: "Everyone loves Meadow's End. It's such a special place!" & "Meadow's End was x's favourite place!" [refers to someone who visited twice & said "What a nice house" out of politeness].

And years ago when we first said we were staying at home with the kids for Christmas, we got (from MIL): "But Meadow's End is so wonderful for Christmas! And your house doesn't have a proper chimney for Father Christmas like Meadow's End!".

I think you need to find out what is French/Spanish/Dutch/whatever for 'oh do fuck off you pretentious twat of a Dad stealer', call your house that (not really, obviously) then refer to it in every conversation.

Like the equivalent of calling your house ODFOD

I only knew one person who did something like this. She was 4.

She named her tree house "Golden Valley Palace."

I was her favourite babysitter so I had the honour of being a frequent visitor.

It was cute. For a 4yo.

YANBU

I grew up near a house called The Tender Trap.

I bet they were swingers.

My friend and I used to refer to our houses as 'Sparechange Towers' and 'SpareFriend Manor', but only because they were the two most unremarkable houses you could imagine, and they were alliterative with our surnames.
We did send out invitations to drinks and parties like that though. I don't think anyone thought we were being serious though

The tiniest house in our road has a tacky name that I hate. When the sold board went up I breathed a sigh of relief.

The new owners have kept it though I'd have made sure I had a screwdriver on the dashboard of the car and removing that nameplate would have been the first thing I did.

Just to be generous to her for a moment, could she be trying to be sensitive by not calling your dad's place 'ours' or 'mine' if they live in what was your family home?

I used to call my Mum's place by street name to my dad after they split up, rather than 'home' or 'mum's' and when we lived with mil I would sometimes call that by street name too.

They do this on The Archers. And they are all twats. So YANBU.

Could it be a joke? Our house just has a number but we will sometimes refer to it as "5foot Towers" for fun. And we have threatened to rename it DunCodin when we retire (both in IT industry)

Also it might depend on where they live. I grew up in a small village and, althugh we lived ina row of council houses which gave us a number, most of the houses were known only by name. I suppose in theory they must have been number xxx High Street but if so this wasn't commn knowledge.

Too hard for an outsider to really have an opinion on whether your stepmother is trying to come between you and your Dad or whether YABU. Could she have deliberately tried to arrange holidays for much of the school holidays because she feels that he is being taken advantage of as free child care? Maybe she doesn't actually want to spend weeks out of every year helping to look after your children and sees the holiday arrangements as a way of avoiding it.

'I would re name her house 'Gobblers Knob' or 'Bell End' and start referring to it in the same way. '

You so should OP!

I can see how this would be something that would indeed drive you potty. One of those little silly irritations which you just cannot stop noticing until you end up doing a silent scream inside your head every time it happens.

What gets on my thrupenny bits is when people introduce their parents to you as 'this is my mum' or 'this is my dad', instead of 'this is my mum, Audrey'. She/he has a name! I'm not going to call her 'mum', am I?????!